Sail Cutthroat

25 April 2007
Lat N 21.22
Long W157.23

It’s not that we’ve been so busy doing adventure things that we haven’t written in a couple of days - as a matter of fact IT’S BEEN QUIET!

The winds have settled down to a nice and comfortable 18-20 knots during the daytime. That allows us to make some serious headway. Today we did 186 miles from our noon to noon tracking. Not bad since we’re only flying our main and genoa (and the staysail most of the time). The really good news is that the night time sailing has improved greatly. By that I mean, we are no longer experiencing the dead zones at night when the wind drops to less than 10 knots and just get bounced around.

Let me explain that a little further…when our 55,000 pound vessel drops from the top of a 10 foot wave to thetrough of the next, it’s not only loud, but it jars every fiber of your being. The fact that this usually happens at night just doesn’t make for a peaceful nights sleep. Actually, it’s not as bad if you’re on watch, in the cockpit trying to make the boat respond better and faster. But if you’re trying to sleep, it becomes downright annoying. The night before last, I went up on deck unexpectedly and found Ed talking to himself saying something to the effect of adding more quarters to get some wind. I think it worked because shortly after that we had 25 - 30 knots and some serious rainfall. Yes, that’s called a squall. The good news is the wind stayed steady in its direction and blew all night. It blew like stink, as they say. And it was much appreciated. We reefed in some of the sails and pretty much surfed all night long. It’s been that way now for the past 48 hours - thank you, King Neptune! You answered our wind prayers.

Last night we had wind throughout the night, but without the squalls. We’re hoping for the same tonight. Roger has his squall outfit on just to be prepared and hoping it will keep them at bay.

Today was a catch up on rest day for the crew. This adventure stuff (halyards breaking, etc) just wears you out. The crew will mutiny if pushed too far. They’ve been on board now long enough to be looking for shore leave (fat chance out here) and they could even be considered a little testy from time to time. Thank God for the sat phone so they can call home.

I have to recant my previous remarks about John not being too handy in the kitchen. He must of just been woofing me because he’s made two fantastic breakfasts this week. Pancakes the other day, and today he made a delicious omelet. So now that we know he’s a good cook, he might get to do some additional galley slave work.

We were going to celebrate our 2000 mile marker yesterday, but with all our excitement we put it off until lunch today. Mixing things up a little, we celebrated with some New York Strip steaks, baked potatoes and a salad. Along with a bottle of wine, life was pretty good on the food scale today.

We are starting to look at the local Hawaii charts and gather coastal weather information. Along with the fact that we found out our slip number at Ko’Olina Marina (E-4) tells us that we are getting close.

The sun is out, the wind is blowing, the fish still aren’t biting, and everyone aboard is healthy and well. We’ll keep updating our status and do look forward to hearing from you. By the way, as you get those emails telling you there’s an update to the website, I understand many of you are making you comments there. That is very much appreciated, but we won’t be able to see those until we can get an email connection. If you want to communicate with us while we’re underway (and we’d like to hear from you), send an email to WDB9753@sailmail.com.

Hope you’re enjoying our little journey as much as we are,

Love to all,
Crew of the Cutthroat
Elise, Roger, John, and Ed